Share Music with SnoCap's BoomShuffle

SnoCap is one of my favorite social-networking add-ons: bands can add a SnoCap module to their MySpace page or other Web page, and the module sells the band's tracks as MP3s. It's a way to bring direct commerce to...

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SnoCap is one of my favorite social-networking add-ons: bands can add a SnoCap module to their MySpace page or other Web page, and the module sells the band's tracks as MP3s. It's a way to bring direct commerce to otherwise tough-to-monetize social networking profiles, and it gives fans an easy way to buy MP3s from their favorite band.

SnoCap's next project is BoomShuffle, a beta music service that was just announced today. BoomShuffle's a simple app that lets users create their own music playlists from SnoCap's catalog; in other words, you don't have to own the tracks to use them in your playlists.

Creating a list is dead simple. Pick a title and enter a description, select a skin for the page, and then start adding tracks. SnoCap's full catalog isn't up and running yet, but reps say it will be in the next week or two. Even so, I found tons of music, including some tracks that aren't in Napster's catalog. The fact that these are full tracks also puts BoomShuffle up over the popular Facebook/iLike playlist maker, in which tons of tracks are only available as 30-second samples.

Important to note that if you list has less than 15 songs by 15 artists, it'll only play 30-second samples of the tracks. Once you add more, however, the list is considered robust enough to be treated as an Internet radio station and you'll be able to hear the full songs. And yes, BoomShuffle will be paying royalties on all the music that's being streamed.

BoomShuffle also lets you invite others to collaborate on your playlists. For instance, the reps gave a scenario of sending an evite out for a party, along with an invitation to a BoomShuffle list that lets your guests create their own party mix.

Once the playlist is done, along with listening to it at BoomShuffle's site, you'll get an embed code for adding it to your Web site, MySpace page, and so on. Listeners will be able to hear the track but, as is par for the Web-radio course, can only skip through five tracks (the maximum allowed to be considered Web radio).

The service looks very cool from what I've seen so far. It's in open beta as of today, so go check it out.

Update: Just for fun (and to try out the embed function), here's the playlist I created today...a pretty good mix of popular and not-so-popular bands, with not-so-popular songs from popular artists and so on. The SnoCap catalog you pull tracks from is quite deep for the most part, and will be filled out more over the next couple weeks.

Update to the Update: I can't see the embedded player in IE7, but it works great in Firefox.

Kyle Monson is the Senior Editor for PCMag.com. He oversees and edits PCMag.com’s home page and product news coverage, and helps out with site maintenance and editing. He also oversees feature projects like the Top 100 Web Sites, and writes reviews and news stories.
Kyle is the Founding Editor of AppScout, a PCMag.com-affiliated blog covering software and Web applications.
Before joining the PC Magazine staff, Kyle wrote for Newsweek and several daily newspapers. He has a BA in Communications (Print Journalism) from Brigham Young University.
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